


rotten ruins

by Nerd_of_Camelot



Series: given time, [1]
Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: Amnesia, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Jak has Dissociative Amnesia, Jak is Traumatized, No Dialogue, Short, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24822898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerd_of_Camelot/pseuds/Nerd_of_Camelot
Summary: After Praxis.After Haven.After Errol.Jak remembers some things from before them.But he doesn't remember much.
Relationships: Daxter & Jak
Series: given time, [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795468
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	rotten ruins

Jak didn’t remember a whole lot of his life before Haven City.

He remembered important things, like Daxter and Keira and Samos. He remembered the other Sages and he remembered Gol and Maia. He remembered, more vaguely, wumpbees and birthdays and crocodogs. He remembered, generally, how his childhood in Sandover had played out.

He remembered _feeling_ things.

But all the details were kind of blurry for anything that wasn’t Daxter and Keira and Samos and adventures.

They weren’t, before Haven.

He remembered that. He remembered knowing more about himself. Remembering more than just Daxter and Keira and Samos and adventures and pain.

But after Haven.

After Praxis.

Everything turned foggy. Feelings faded. He didn’t remember much, didn’t feel a whole lot of anything.

Mostly he just felt angry.

And after Praxis. _After_ Praxis.

He mostly felt rotten and hollow.

He felt like there was something that was supposed to be there, in his chest, where everything felt empty. Like there was some _feeling_ he was eternally missing. Maybe more than one. Like something in his chest before Haven had shrivelled up and _died there._ Started rotting behind his ribs and turning everything sludgy and disgusting inside of him.

He wasn’t even angry, most of the time. He just acted like he was, when he didn’t feel anything, because he should be reacting to everything. He should be responding. Feeling something other than rotting and emptiness. And a lot of it did sort of ignite the anger he felt, but never to the level he thought was suitable.

Always too much or too little.

Always just a little annoyed or overly enraged.

… He still preferred it to the empty feeling, though, so there wasn’t much to be done when he did get too angry.

He guessed that, when finding out that he was the heir to an ancient family and his father who hadn’t even known except as a banished king was now _dead,_ he should have had some sort of strong emotional reaction. Maybe he should have felt crushed.

But he didn’t, and that made him angrier than anything else.

He didn’t feel anything when he thought it would make sense to feel something and it drove him nuts. He hated it.

The only other thing he ever seemed to feel aside from anger was pure, unfiltered _sadism_ and that was worse than feeling nothing at all.

He remembered not feeling that way.

He remembered a time, a place, where he had felt things other than sadistic glee and anger and emptiness and like he was rotting from the inside out. Felt good things. Felt happy.

But not since Haven.

None of that since Haven.

He guessed he wasn’t surprised. Even with the addition of Light Eco into his system and plenty of time to burn off all the extra Eco inside of himself, he’d had more Dark Eco than blood inside of him for years now, with more always being pumped in until it wasn’t anymore. It stood to reason that the Dark Eco would burn off everything good in him while it tore through his veins and ripped apart his body over and over again.

It hadn’t done that to _Daxter,_ sure, but Dax…

Well.

He was always something else.

Jak wasn’t anything special. None of this changed that.

It just put it into perspective that even when people treated him like he was special it was circumstantial at best and usually not even based on something he’d done. Or at least nothing he’d done alone.

Was he strong? Sure. Did he do impressive things? Again, sure.

But he was just one guy and he didn’t even _feel things right_ anymore.

… Sometimes, when he felt more like his guts were rotting than normal, he wondered why Daxter and the others even put up with him. Why they kept him around. Why Daxter didn’t just kick him to the curb.

He’d be justified.

Jak wasn’t the best friend Daxter had spent two years looking for after the guards took him. He was just some kind of egregious bastardization of that kid. A monster wearing his skin that was rotting what was left of him away.

No one, least of all Jak, would blame him for telling him to hit the road.

Then again, he thought, perhaps too vindictively in those moments, no one else would put up with Dax like he did. No one else would unconditionally remain by his side through even his worst days. Just Jak and his empty chest full of rot and sludge and his unkillable loyalty to the one person who offered the same kind of unconditional, unkillable loyalty to him in turn.

Right now, when he just felt empty and not particularly disgusting otherwise, he wondered why Daxter put up with knowing Jak remembered almost nothing about their life before Haven. Wasn’t it frustrating, he wondered? Wasn’t it disappointing?

He guessed it must not be, because Daxter continued to act like it didn’t matter to him at all.

He went about his days and nights, just fine and dandy and happy with the way things were. Unruffled. And Jak stayed with him and watched the days fly by and felt empty, or like he was rotting.

Sometimes, when Daxter would crack a joke, though, Jak would feel something.

Briefly.

Something sparking and hot that wasn’t _anger_ but never went further. Never stuck around long enough for him to figure out. But he felt it so clearly, when it sparked up. He felt it clearly and he recognized it, sort of. Knew he’d felt it before.

Didn’t think he’d ever find out what it actually was. Didn’t think he’d ever actually remember enough to remember the feeling completely.

He guessed it didn’t matter, but right now, feeling empty, he couldn’t help hoping he’d remember.

He also couldn’t help hoping that, one day, the feeling would come and would stick around long enough for him to figure it out.

But right now, feeling empty, he was just as ‘glad’ as he could be that he knew it wasn’t anger, and that he didn’t feel like he was rotting. That was enough.

For now, that was enough.

Anything else would have to come in time.

**Author's Note:**

> wanted to write something for Jak and Daxter since it's one of my OG fandoms, and to-date i've only ever worked on a friend of mine's fic since the main character was an OC i made when i was like 12 and the friend would sometimes have me write chapters instead of her when she was really busy. never written my own that i remember!
> 
> so there's this. i opened a random word generator and the words rotten and hollow stuck out to me, so i decided to run with them
> 
> enjoy?
> 
> probably going to be more in this universe tbh
> 
> [minor rant ahead]  
> it's also important to note that Jak 'remembers' things in a very particular way. he remembers what he's been _told_ about his past and, contrary to what one expects of someone in his position, he remembers his traumas and very little else. they consume him and erase pretty much everything else at this stage. when he says he 'remembers' his childhood, he means someone told him how things should have happened and he believes it because dax and keira largely told him the same things and why and when would they both tell him the same things if they were lying? he actually remembers feelings a little better, but they're blurred into a point he needs time to figure out what they are.  
> "but allie," i can hear you saying "what about him warning young jak about the wumpbee nest?"  
> and to you i say, "did i not just say he remembers his traumas and very little else? that event was clearly traumatic"  
> anyways yeah, the Dark Eco fucked his brain up somethin fierce and now he's hard-wired to remember only the things that hurt him before Haven with any real clarity  
> good thing about dissociative amnesia, though, is that even when it's warped like this due to creative liberties on trauma reactions, it usually clears up given some time and attempts to get rid of it


End file.
